CompuServe Thread

Regarding the books and R3: Thanks for asking as I am sure many other people have similar questions. First I will describe the book contents. Glass & Reflection This book tells you how to create glass materials that will look like glass and not plastic by manipulating reflection maps and transparency for the best effect. You will also learn principles of reflection, as they apply to way flat mirror and autoreflection work in 3DS, so you can get both kinds of reflection to reflect what you want every time. Regarding R3: R3 has a much more comprehensive materials editor so there are many more possibilities for glass and reflection. However the basic concepts are still the same. The book is meant to give you the basics by showing a some models and how to make them look perfect, but on your own models you would have to play around with the materials to get them to look right with your scene. The book is meant to give you a springboard from which to experiment. R3 means you have more ways to experiment once you know the basics, but the basics are still the basics. Shaping & Lofting This book tells you how to use the Fit tool in the Lofter, and how to determine the shapes needed to make a particular object. With the book you make a Microsoft Mouse and a fancy perfume bottle to learn the concepts, but you can use the techniques to look at any real object, determine the shapes for the Shaper, make them "fittable", and loft them painlessly. It also shows you how to manipulate the path in the Lofter so your lofted objects will land perfectly sized and placed in the 3D Editor so you are not doing a whole lot of moving and scaling in the 3D Editor. Also a lot of miscellaneous tips on shaping and lofting. [continued]

Regarding R3: The 2D Shaper and 3D Lofter have been improved in R3 but the changes have been smallish. You still have to place the path where you want it, there is no automatic way to do this. And your fit shapes must still be made in such-and-such a way in order to work. 95% of the book still applies as it stands. I am being safe here, it's probably more like 98%. Morphing & Animation In this book you learn how to make morphable objects, both lofted objects and 3D Editor objects. You even learn how make lofted objects with the same number of vertices as Editor objects so you can morph them. In the Animation section, you learn the basics of character animation; you make a puppet man, link him and make him walk. Regarding R3: Again, there are more possibilities for animation in R3, but the basics are still the same. For example, you still have to have the same number of vertices to have two morphable objects, and there is still no automatic way to do this in R3. Also, there is also still no "Object/Walk" command in the Keyframer <g>. There is one thing: the book tells you that you cannot morph materials, and in R3 you can. I am glad you asked this because until now I hadn't really gone through the books with an eye to R3, but I firmly believe the books are still good for someone who is somewhere between the tutorials and perfection. Of course, I am one of the authors… <g> If you are still skeptical, I suggest you post a general message on the forum, or call Pyros Partnership (714) 833-0334. They sell the book but are also heavy-duty 3DS users. Or if you have a particular project you are hoping to get help on, ask me and I will tell you if the solution is covered anywhere in the books. [continued]

Please contact me if you have any more questions. Michele

If I were to approach this project, I would approach it like this: 1. Make a simple 12-sided cylinder. Use 2D scale until it is the right size. You can apply maps to this to make the texture, no need to loft a bumpy log! 2. Make a log material with a texture map and matching bump map. As an experiment I whacked together a texture and bump map which I am sending to you via Email– they are small CEL files so they won't take long to download. These will at least give you an idea of what you should try to do. I didn't try them out in 3DS (someone swiped my dongle for the day!) so they may be ugly, but it's a start. To make the material: Texture map LOGTEX.CEL at 100% Bump map LOBBMP.CEL at 10% (this may need to be adjusted up or down later) Specular color medium brown Shininess 10% Assign the material to the log, and also apply a cylindrical texture map to the log, roughly the size and shape of the log. 3. Stick three lights in the scene as in the introduction of the books, stick in a camera and have a look. If the maps are not good enough, the best approach is to look at an actual log or a picture of a log and make your maps that way. Since I assume the view of the logs will not be very close up the maps do not have to have a lot of detail. [continued]

[continued] Once you have one log looking pretty good, you will have to copy it. With a little planning this can be painless. I assume you want to stack them perpendicular to each other. In that case, copy the log once, then rotate and move the copy until it is in the right position above the first log. Then select both logs (Select/Object/etc.) and use Object/Move with Selected ON, and hold down the Shift key when you click on the logs to move them. This will automatically copy them. Practice this with the one set until it is easy for you to make the second set. After that, the rest should be easy. If you would rather make "log house siding", just do what we all do: find a book with a picture of a log house in it, scan the picture and use it as a texture map. Believe me, that's what EVERYBODY does. It is difficult for me to be sure this is the right advice since I cannot see your project, for example if the logs need to be more detailed the mapping approach won't work. If you have any more questions please ask. Michele

>>I finally got somewhere with the camera this weekend!! Clap, clap, clap, clap, (whistle!)! Congratulations, Judy! "You've taken your first step into a larger world." Dave